“Elected Democrat officials in Arizona are breathlessly calling for the immediate resignation of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio based on a four-year-old story involving sex crime investigations, which were reviewed and investigated by his office four years ago. These Arpaio detractors are also breathless in their insistence that none of this has to do with politics or partisanship.

The actions and words of Ruben Gallego, Randy Parraz, Steve Gallardo, Kyrsten Sinema, Congress members Ed Pastor and Raul Grijalva, and other elected Democrats, reek of political opportunism and partisanship. After all, these are the same Democrats that have been opposed to the Sheriff’s enforcement of illegal immigration laws for years.

The fact of the matter is this: the mishandling of these cases was brought to the Sheriff’s attention in 2007. Arpaio immediately ordered the cases re-opened and investigated. They have been brought to a conclusion. Further, the Sheriff is hiring an expert in the area of sex crimes investigations to train staff for future cases and will offer that service to other law enforcement agencies.

Meanwhile, the City of Phoenix has nearly 2,500 cases involving sex crimes and molestation currently under review. Many of these were never pursued or were mishandled. These cases surfaced only months ago, yet there is a deafening silence from these elected officials in calling for elected Mayor Phil Gordon, a Democrat ally, to immediately resign.

Why would they remain silent about Phil Gordon? Mayor Gordon was responsible for going to Washington several times to request that the Justice Department investigate Arpaio’s enforcement of state and federal immigration laws.

Arpaio has stated he will not criticize Valley law enforcement agencies that currently have the same problem his office experienced four years ago. However, for these elected officials and other activists to use these investigations, which have received extensive coverage media coverage through the years, as a pure political tool is disgusting.

Many of these Democrat politicians calling for Arpaio’s resignation are the same ones that have called upon the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate his office. But they have curiously remained silent on any calls for resignation from (Democrat) Attorney General Eric Holder and his role in the “Fast and Furious” scandal that resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

The political left in this state feels emboldened by their recent success in removing Senator Russell Pearce from office. The leader of that effort, Randy Parraz, has publicly stated that his next target is Arpaio.

Tomorrow this group will attend and surely disrupt the Maricopa County Board of Supervisor’s meeting in a futile attempt to have Arpaio removed from office.

The transparent political stunt to resurrect a four-year-old story after steps have been taken to resolve the issue is shameful, desperate and again, disgusting.

The voters in Maricopa County will see this for what it is and reject this partisan witch hunt.”

In August, we ran a post asking why Randy Parraz was not targeting the 2nd worst offender in the Fiesta Bowl scandal – State Representative Ben Arredondo. After all, Parraz and crew were adamant that one of the major reasons the recall was taking place was because of corruption over the Fiesta Bowl.

Yesterday’s recall election was a major success for Randy Parraz and crew. They made political history by defeating a sitting State Senator and placed the “trophy political kill” of Russell Pearce on their wall.

With their success behind them, will Parraz and crew now be intellectually consistent in their agenda of cleaning up the corruption by pursuing the recall of State Representative Ben Arredondo?

Perhaps Parraz’ comment from an interview with the Arizona Republic on election night will shed some insight where he intends to take his leftist political machine next:

Parraz said he and his allies may go after other politicians whom he blames for poisoning Arizona’s political discourse, singling out Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was at Pearce’s side throughout the recall campaign.

“We’re looking at other people, like Sheriff Arpaio,” Parraz said. “If that’s the type of politics Sheriff Arpaio wants, we’ll see what happens in the new year.”

Parraz’ political agenda has never been about cleaning up corruption – especially the kind of corruption Democrats thrive on. It’s about taking down elected officials who are strong on immigration policy. Parraz’ motives are racially based and align with the La Raza agenda. And he will use that racial hatred to divide communities and bolster his political resume.

Watching the recall effort take place in legislative district 18 one is left wondering why other recalls are not taking place elsewhere across the state, especially in legislative district 17.

Pearce recaller and failed Democratic US Senate candidate, Randy Parraz, likes to cite public policy differences as the reason for recalling Russell Pearce but fails to mention any of the other State Senators or Representatives who also voted for these same pieces of legislation.

Mr. Parraz, why not seek recall efforts against any of the other legislators who voted for these same public policy proposals? And if your motive is to recall someone who you disagree with on public policy issues, why haven’t you made a practice of this during all the off-year elections since you cannot seem to win elections (including your own) during the regular election cycle.

Pearce recaller’s motives don’t make sense if this is only about disagreements on public policy.

That’s why Pearce recallers like to bring up the Fiesta Bowl scandal as another reason for recalling Senator Pearce. They argue that Pearce accepted in-kind donations from Fiesta Bowl representatives over several years and then voted on legislation that affected the Fiesta Bowl.

Hmmmm… I thought that’s how lobbying worked at the State Capitol, especially when it comes down to labor and teachers unions donating gobs and gobs of money to Democrats.

What Pearce recallers fail to mention and the hypocrisy is GLARING, is that Fiesta Bowl representatives also gave in-kind donations to other legislators. At the top of the list is Legislative District 17 State Representative, Ben Arredondo who actually voted a $6,450,000 MILLION subsidy to bring the Insight Bowl from Phoenix to Tempe. Maybe a little more clarification on the gifts to Arredondo from a third party is appropriate at this point. Here’s what the Arizona Republic wrote on May 13th:

Gifts to Arredondo

Arredondo, a former teacher and coach, was running for Tempe City Council in 2001 when seven Fiesta Bowl employees made $875 in contributions to his campaign. Three years later, four employees made another $1,200 in contributions.

At that time, the Fiesta Bowl was headquartered in Tempe and played its game in ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium.

In 2005, the Fiesta Bowl was looking to move its sister game, the Insight Bowl, out of downtown Phoenix. Negotiations began with Tempe, which was looking to replace the Fiesta Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium since the Fiesta was moving to Glendale. One of the key negotiators was Arredondo, according to Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman.

Hallman said Arredondo also was close to Husk, who, in addition to lobbying for the Fiesta Bowl, had been a paid consultant for Tempe.

After reaching a memorandum of understanding in July 2005, the city the following year agreed to give the Fiesta Bowl a $6.45 million subsidy to host the Insight Bowl through 2013. The subsidy for each of the next two years is $850,000, while the final year’s payment is $900,000, according to the contract.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009, the Fiesta Bowl said it provided Arredondo with expensive National Football League tickets, including 2009 Super Bowl tickets worth $4,000. In summer 2009, the bowl said, he called saying he wanted to go on a trip. The bowl paid all expenses for Arredondo and his wife, Ruthann, to travel to Minnesota to watch a college football game.

“We paid for everything: the game, the hotel, the meals and the airfare,” Anthony Aguilar, the bowl’s director of community and corporate relations, told Fiesta Bowl investigators.

Arredondo did not return calls to his house, where messages were left with his wife. Ruthann Arredondo declined to answer questions.

On April 1, after the Fiesta Bowl investigative report had been released, Arredondo amended his financial disclosure forms for 2007, 2008 and 2009 to show he received a gift worth more than $500 from the Fiesta Bowl. The amended 2009 form indicates his wife also received a gift. The nature of the gifts was not disclosed.

Where am I going with all this? Here’s my point: The recall effort against Russell Pearce is NOT really about public policy. And it’s not even about the Fiesta Bowl in-kind donations.

The recall effort against Russell Pearce is about people who hate and don’t like Russell Pearce. It’s about working voters up into a rabid frenzy mob mentality to go after someone who you can later say, “We took down Russell Pearce!” If this was a regular election year, these frothing folks would not have anything to rally around because they’d be defending their own political turfs from an electorate that votes right of center. This is about Randy Parraz building a list of people to be exploited elsewhere against another Republican.

So my big question is why won’t the Parraz-led recallers be consistent and also recall Representative Ben Arredondo? The reality is they won’t because Arredondo votes the way they want him to vote.

My challenge is for them to stop being hypocrites and mount a recall effort against Ben Arredondo. And if they can’t find it in themselves to be intellectually honest and consistent, maybe its time for another group to form and recall Ben Arredondo.

UPDATE – November 9, 2011:

The Recall election was a major success for Randy Parraz and crew. Election night, Parraz made the following statement to the Arizona Republic:

Parraz said he and his allies may go after other politicians whom he blames for poisoning Arizona’s political discourse, singling out Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was at Pearce’s side throughout the recall campaign.

“We’re looking at other people, like Sheriff Arpaio,” Parraz said. “If that’s the type of politics Sheriff Arpaio wants, we’ll see what happens in the new year.”

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